Countdown to liftoff for Hyundai's new WRC

The Korean man outside is not happy. The tape measure's out again. His European colleague holds the bottom of the tape. Yes, they've agreed. A quick smile and mark is made.

The location of the Hyundai Motorsport sign on the front of the Alzenau factory is set.

In a microcosm, this is typical of how motorsport's latest East-Euro alliance is working. Walking past the pair, it's hard not to be impressed with what's been achieved in the Frankfurt suburbs.

Equally, the first public factory visit does raise more than a few questions. The biggest one being... where is everbody?

In 80 days a brace of Hyundai i20 WRCs will leave this building and head south... to Monaco for the start of the Monte Carlo Rally. And yet, as we walk between the sparkling build bays and engineering suites, you can't help but think the place might've been busier. Granted, much of the 80-strong workforce, including team principal Michel Nandan, is in Spain on the latest bi-weekly test, but still, it wasn't the hive of activity I was expecting.

But then you stop and think longer and harder about the timeframe this team is working to. And things make a little more sense. Let's not forget, it was only just over a year since Hyundai's return to the World Rally Championship was confirmed at the Paris motorshow. Hyundai Motorsport Group then remained rudderless until president Choi's appointment in December followed by Nandan a month later.

Hyundai has big ambitions for its new motorsport facility

And this building? This place I'm standing in right now? This factory facility was only opened on June 13. That's right, just over four months ago. No wonder the fellas are still putting the sign up outside. The paint has barely had chance to dry on the walls and soon the walls are going to be covered in 2014 service schedules and build programmes.

As we've discovered, this is the Hyundai way. If you're going to do something, why wait? Quite possibly, the more conservative Europeans would have favoured following Volkswagen's lead by spending a season testing the car before they launched it into the full force of a WRC programme. That made no sense in Korea. Namyang, Hyundai's research and development centre, had a road car ready to be a rally car - what was the point in waiting?

At the moment, those in the factory have to wait. But not for long. The homologation of the i20 road car is complete and that process begins for the rally car at the end of October. Once the team has FIA agreement on the i20 WRC, then the factory will really fire into life. That's when cars will be built in earnest to continue testing and in readiness to roll over the ramp in Casino Square.

Team manager Alain Penasse walks a handful of hacks around the former 8000 square metre facility, formerly used for solar panel production. He's vague on the number of i20 WRCs built at the moment. It's four, but it could be five.

What he's not vague on is the storm about to hit him and the rest of his colleagues in the first quarter of next year.

"It's going to be hectic," he admits. "We need four cars built in time for Monte Carlo. Two to go to Monte and two for Sweden, but then we need another two to airfreight to Mexico. I just hope there's something left from the first two rounds..."

The Hyundai i20 is racking up test miles with the likes of Chris Atkinson, Juho Hanninen and Bryan Bouffier

And that pressure's not going to let up all season. No sooner is the original i20 WRC up and running than the replacement will start its test programme, and this car - the all-new rally car based on the all-new road car - is the real future for Hyundai.

Looking at this in VW terms, we should almost consider the Hyundai that hits the road next season as the equivalent of the Skoda Fabia S2000 that Hannover fielded in 2012. The Korean equivalent of VW's Polo R WRC will be with us in 2015. Hyundai has the opportunity to build knowledge and ability next season, while the weight of Board expectation is focused 12 months down the line.

Trouble is, the watching world won't see a team warming up with a season of sport in a Super 2000, it'll see the world's fourth largest auto maker lining up with a car built in a matter of months.

Expectations on a global scale must be managed.

And, as if building the cars isn't enough, the factory's still not finished yet. Walking further around, it all looks lovely, neat, tidy and clean. Penasse stops us near the loading bays - the big doors up to which Hyundai's trucks will roll to have the Monte cars fed into them. There's a building just beyond those doors.

"That's going to be our engine facility," he says. Excuse me?

Is there no end to the ambition?

The current engine is the work of Pipo Moteur, but that will be taken in-house next year - as will much of the suspension work; a home for the shock-rig is being constructed as I type.

"We want to be autonomous," says Penasse.

Hyundai's Accent WRC programme came to a troubled end © LAT

A quick look back in time will explain why. Remember the Accent? Remember the acrimony? Remember the early end, the disenchanted drivers, the discord with preparation firm Motor Sport Developments? The taste left in Hyundai's corporate mouth following its early departure from its last WRC programme wasn't so much bitter as outright poisonous.

That's not to say there's not a nod to MSD's fine work - the Accent WRC was well on the way to becoming a very strong World Rally Car when the deal went sour - and an acknowledgment of the Korean's world rally presence. Locating a final-spec Accent and Coupe Formula 2 car alongside the original i20 WRC show car and road car in the factory is a nice touch.

But the development of a self-sufficient capacity is an acknowledgment that this is Hyundai's show now. Nobody else's. And in that fashion, it has ambitions to emulate Toyota.

"This," says Hyundai PR manager Thomas Villette widening his hands to indicate the whole building, "is the motorsport entity of the world's fourth biggest car builder. We are in the place now where TTE was 30 years ago [with its Cologne motorsport facility] and we think it's very exciting that we are building everything from the start. We are Hyundai and this is Hyundai Motorsport."

Hyundai is working flat-out in facilities in both Germany and Korea

And that link between Alzenau and Namyang is strong and getting stronger.

Remember the part in Apollo 13 when Jim Lovell and his team are hit by an explosion in an oxygen tank? And Houston's answer to the problem is to start utilising available parts back at base? Well, the same kind of thing applies here. Except without the potential re-entry issues.

There's an identical, current-specification i20 WRC in Namyang, enabling Korea to understand the precise nature of a development or problem on a real car.

And, don't forget, with the time difference between Germany and Korea, this is a 24-hour a day process - when the Europeans go to bed, Asia is up, running and working on the world's newest World Rally Car.

Inevitably, as the walk around the factory draws to a close, the burning question is bridged; not the one about Thierry Neuville, that one was asked and subsequently batted off ages ago.

No, this one is about next year and targets.

Clearly, the target is 2015. Next year is a learning year, a development season. Not happy with that, Penasse is pushed further and harder into a more finite answer.

The wraps will come off when the i20 heads to Monte Carlo in January

"The goal is to continue to build the team next year," he says. "For the performance, it's very difficult to say. We want to show some performance, but we didn't put a goal there for ourselves. We will be very happy if we can do some best stage times and maybe a podium position at some stage in the year."

So, there we have it.

Eighteen months ago, very few people knew about it.

Twelve months ago, plenty of people still believed it wouldn't happen.

Six months ago, project i20 WRC still had its doubters.

But now, it's happening: we've seen the wall and the writing on it (with now unsurprising efficiency the sign was up by the time we left).

Three months from now, Hyundai will be back in the World Rally Championship and the 108 residents of Alzenau's Korean corner will be on the road again.

How quickly they'll be travelling down that road remains to be seen.